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Summer Visit - 2013 - SHIPs

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The SHIPs team came to visit in June 2013. The core team educators attended, plus 9 students.

Quotes

  • [student:] I was incredibly surprised about how much computer programming I learned. Technology (especially Computer Technology) has never been my strong point but I was able to expand my knowledge and use of Python exponentially. This was completely unexpected for me and I consider it one of my proudest achievements for this trip. It was such an incredible feeling to finally get a program to work after spending a long time concentrating on it. This accomplishment was not easy for me and many times I felt frustrated. However, I then decided to approach programming with a fresh mindset: I started to think of programming as a math game or puzzle. After that, getting a program to work was like winning a game! Many times I jumped for joy after successfully making a program with my peers. I believe that this different attitude helped me gain a new appreciation and enjoyment of programming – something I never expected to happen.
  • [student:] It wasn't necessarily as surprising as it was relieving to find out that everyone was generally in the same boat as far as knowledge went. I was a bit nervous to go on the trip because Python and photometry were very new to me. But after discovering that it was new to everyone, it became a collaborative effort that I really enjoyed, and it never seemed like a competition.
  • [student:] I thought [this visit] would be where we sit in formal rows and someone's at the board showing us what to do as we follow along, but it wasn't that at all. We were given help if we needed, but it was largely "Here's the goal, now go." It was good though because it really forced me to learn what I was doing.
  • I was surprised with the speed with which my students increased their proficiency with the tools we are using -- especially Python programming! My students acted very independently and hardly ever needed me to suggest something for them to do next; many times they were already anticipating the next tasks and trying to figure out how to do it!
  • [student:] The best thing about the trip was meeting all of the other students and teachers who were working on the same research as us. It was nice to be able to come together and compare our research and learn together as a group.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2013 - SHIPs